A long wait is over
The Detroit Pistons are division champions again.
They secured the Central Division on Tuesday, March 31, with a 127-116 home win over the Toronto Raptors. The victory gave them an eight-game lead over the Cleveland Cavaliers with six games remaining and locked up the franchise’s 11th division title, its first since 2008.
It was also the franchise’s first title of any kind in 6,577 days, which is the sort of number that tends to make a front office, a locker room and a fan base notice the calendar a little differently.
“You take pride in understanding how hard it is to do any of those things in this league,” coach J.B. Bickerstaff said. “You take pride in the fact that you have a group of young guys, young men who collectively have grown and achieved certain milestones. It’s a part of the process, and we expect more. But you just respect how difficult it is to do any of those things in this league. It is a big deal for our guys and this organization to get ourselves back in that position and in position to do more, because you can't win the level you want to win at if you don’t take those steps.”
More milestones keep showing up
The division title came alongside the Pistons’ 55th win of the season, which gives them sole possession of the fourth-winningest regular season in franchise history.
With six games left, they can still pass the team record of 59 wins, set by the 1989-90 Pistons and matched by the 2007-08 squad. That 2007-08 team is also the last Pistons group to win a playoff game at home and the last to win a playoff series.
And yes, the last Central title was a while ago. When Detroit last claimed the division in 2008, Seattle still had an NBA team, Charlotte had the Bobcats, New Orleans had the Hornets and New Jersey still had the Nets. Jalen Duren, now in his fourth season with the franchise, was not even 4½ years old. Ron Holland, the youngest player on the current roster and in his second season with the team, was still more than three months from his third birthday.
The world has also managed to produce a few things since then. Only three “Fast & Furious” movies had been released at the time, and the Marvel Cinematic Universe was still five weeks away from beginning with Iron Man. The Pistons’ return to the top of the Central now brings the MCU to 37 films, because apparently everything eventually becomes a franchise statistic.
A lot has changed, and LeBron James is still around
There is also one particularly sturdy reference point for just how much time has passed.
In 2008, the Cavaliers, who finished 14 games behind Detroit in the division race, were led by a 23-year-old LeBron James. He ended that season, his fifth in the league, with 10,689 career points.
On Tuesday, James scored 14 points for the Los Angeles Lakers in a 127-113 win over Cleveland, pushing his NBA-leading career total to 43,325 points.
The timing makes the gap even more striking. By the time Detroit clinched this latest division title, James had already scored 43,311 career points. That means he has added 32,847 points since the Pistons last finished first in the Central. Only Kobe Bryant, Karl Malone and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar have scored more points in NBA history.
The bigger prize is still ahead
For all the celebration, the Pistons are still chasing the top seed in the Eastern Conference.
Their magic number over the Boston Celtics dropped to two on Tuesday. That means a Celtics loss on Wednesday, at the Miami Heat, and a Pistons win on Thursday, at Little Caesars Arena against the Minnesota Timberwolves, would give Detroit its first regular-season conference title since 2006-07.
That is also likely the last major box left to check for a team that has already clinched the division and homecourt advantage in the first round.
“We knew we were trying to do something special since this summer, since this core group has been together,” point guard Daniss Jenkins said. “Even last year we were just working, just grinding, just scratching stuff off our list. It’s great to accomplish things like that, but we obviously have our eyes on the playoffs and want to do some damage there. It’s good. We’ll celebrate it tonight, but we’re about to do work tomorrow.”
Even the late-season loss of All-Star guard Cade Cunningham has not derailed the run. Tuesday’s win left the Pistons 7-2 since Cunningham suffered a collapsed left lung on March 17.
Jalen Duren, also an All-Star, led Detroit on Tuesday with 31 points on 12-for-13 shooting and nine rebounds. Over 20 games from the All-Star break through Tuesday, the 22-year-old averaged 23 points and 11.1 rebounds while shooting 66.3%.
That production has helped underscore one of the main reasons the Pistons have climbed this far: depth. Javonte Green, Paul Reed and Kevin Huerter nearly carried Detroit to an overtime road win over the Oklahoma City Thunder on Monday, while Duren, Tobias Harris and Duncan Robinson sat out, along with Cunningham and Isaiah Stewart.
With less than two weeks left in the regular season, the Pistons have little left to chase except pride, seeding and the kind of preparation teams usually pretend is the real prize until the playoffs arrive on April 18.
“I think it’s good that we’re still hitting milestones,” Duren said. “It’s good for the team to celebrate right now. Take it with a grain of salt and get ready for the next one.”
